New documentary about slain journalist Ruben Salazar screened at UTEP

Panelists say he dealt with issues still faced by Hispanic journalists

Ruben Salazar, a pioneering Mexican-American journalist from El Paso who was slain in 1970, faced issues still confronted by Hispanic journalists, panelists said Wednesday night after a screening of a documentary on his life.

The documentary "Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle" was screened at the Union Cinema at the University of Texas at El Paso. The PBS documentary will air nationwide April 29, locally at 9:30 p.m. on Channel 13-KCOS.

Film director and producer Phillip Rodriguez said he tried to show the complexity of Salazar, who was caught between cultures as a Mexican-American in a Los Angeles Times newsroom made up mostly of white men.

Salazar, who was born in Juárez and grew up in El Paso, was a graduate of Texas Western College (now UTEP). He started his career at the El Paso Herald-Post in the 1950s before moving to the Los Angeles Times, where he was a correspondent in Vietnam and Mexico City.

Salazar died under mysterious circumstances on Aug. 29, 1970 when he was hit by a tear-gas projectile fired by a sheriff's deputy while Salazar was covering a Chicano anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Los Angeles for KMEX, a Spanish-language television station, and as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Cultural activist Rosa Guerrero knew Salazar when he was growing up and said that a school or park should be named to honor the slain journalist in his hometown.

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Guerrero was part of a panel that discussed Salazar after the screening. The other panelists were Rodríguez, UTEP journalism professor Zita Arocha, television border reporter Angela Kocherga and state Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso.

"He was an extraordinary role model and I liked to say I want all my students to know his story and to emulate his story," Arocha said of Salazar. Most major newsrooms today are still primarily white and Hispanic journalists still have to fight to keep from only covering minority issues, she said.

"It's gotten worse with the advent — I hate to say it — of all the online news because those newsrooms are continuing to reflect the white reality of this country, which is not really the totality of this country," Arocha said.